[EAS] Ipaws to switch to commercial providors?

[Alex Hartman]

I gave the suggestion when CAP first started. Utilize the state/federal networks already in place. Racking another few servers per state doesn't really add much to the bottom line in the grand scheme. De-centralizing the entire system using something like round-robin DNS to do load balancing and ensure somewhat even distribution. They can all sync to each other using push methods depending on say FIPS codes or something like it. 

Using the state/fed networks in place already ensures that no one entity can take the system over and also has a resilience built-in. Going to a commercial solution, while it may work, has a shareholder to answer to. If the company goes Enron or MCI on us, then what? The entire network is compromised? That's why it's a bad idea. These data centers are so fluid that it'd be hard to keep track of what's going on. Not to mention the "master key" approach. It actually is a matter of national security at that point. 

IIRC, in the IPAWS infancy, the entire system was run on throw-away servers hosted on Verizon FIOS modems given the problems they had early on. Geo-diversity means nothing when they're connected via the same network. I think it was a best-effort based on a law written by EAS manufacturers who just needed new business, and not much more. The system is inherently flawed by using a "best effort" network for information dissemination. While the traditional EAS system stays in place, i doubt that will be the case in a few years. 

We (the broadcasters) will be left holding the potato when (not if) IPAWS blows up in our faces. 

Commercial hosting is seriously a bad idea. I've worked in enterprise data centers for several tier 1 providers. They care about their connectivity, but the physical space changes ownership so often these days it's going to really be hard to track. The best answer is to use the statewide networks in place already. It's controlled, it's already there, it's redundant in many places (Montana i'm not sure about), and has some pretty high security given their nature, and they really aren't going anywhere.

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Alex Hartman